Donna's Journey

A few years ago, we went to New Mexico to watch the X-prize competition. My son and the team he is on has been competing ever since. This past week we watched and cheered for the different competitors in the Northrop-Grumman Lunar Lander X-prize Challenge, finishing both level I and Level II of the competition. It came down to the wire and it was exciting to the end.

What happened:
Level I – Ist place $350K, Second place $150K
* Armadillo Aerospace took first place in level one of the competition last year and won $350k.
* Masten Space Systems took second place in the Level one for a $150k prize and Unreasonable Rocket was won of only three teams to actually finish the first leg of the level one competition. Masten completed Level one earlier in the month. Unreasonable Rocket made their flight this weekend, but damaged their rocket on landing and were unable to finish the return trip.

Level II- A much more difficult challenge than Level I- !st Place $1 Million, 2nd Place $500k Since only two teams qualified, the winner was the one that landed closest to on target.
* Masten Space Systems won first place with a landing accuracy of 19 cm, for a $1 Million prize
My son, Jon Goff, is the rocket propulsion engineer for Masten Space Systems.
* Armadillo Aerospace won the $500K second place with a landing accuracy of 87 cm.

Totals in prizes-
Masten combined level I and II $1,150,000
Armadillo Aerospace level I and II $850,000

Great work Masten Space Systems, Armadillo Aerospace, and Unreasonable Rocket!